When you read a great headline, why not copy it? Toupee or not? Sony answers the question was Nic Fildes’ headline in The Times today announcing that Sony had registered a patent for a SmartWig,
To quote Nic: “Sony’s filing with the US Patent and Trademark Office said that a wig made of “horse hair, human hair, wool, feathers, yak hair, buffalo hair or any kind of synthetic material” could be used to hide sensors, video cameras and location technology. Sony has even developed a prototype of the SmartWig that places sensors under the sideburns, which employees in Tokyo used to flip through a slide presentation by tapping on the side of their heads. A laser pointer could be installed on the forehead of the wig so that a presenter could highlight relevant information on a projected slide.
In its most bizarre vision, Sony said that two people who were both wearing wigs could engage in “wig-to-wig communication”.
I feel I can quote from Nic as he asked for my comments on this which he printed thus:
Richard Holway, a technology analyst at TechMarketView, said that Sony’s idea sounded a bit like an April Fool’s joke. However, he said that the rush towards wearable technology would result in all sorts of designs emerging that would seem surreal at first.
“There is a serious aspect to this. We are on the cusp of a new era of wearable computing. It won’t be wigs but it will be wristbands or watches that will monitor everything we do,” he said.